|
Tokyo: Rice tumbled for a fourth straight day as the US said it would not object if Japan exported from its stockpile of imported rice to ease tight global supplies that had pushed the price to a record.
The US doesn't mind if Japan taps its reserves, which amount to about 4.4 per cent of world trade in the food staple, a US trade official said on Wednesday. Officials from both nations will discuss next week how Japan would use those reserves, whether as food aid or market sales, the US official said.
Rice fell 10 per cent this week after a Japanese government official said Japan is in talks to sell rice to the Philippines from its stockpiles of about 1.2 million metric tonnes.
The price reached a record on April 24 after some exporters curbed sales to ensure domestic supplies, stoking riots from Haiti to Egypt.
Rough rice for July delivery fell as much as 93 cents, or 4.3 per cent, to $20.56 per 100 pounds, the lowest since May 2, in after-hours electronic trading on the Chicago Board of Trade and traded at $20.765 at 1:13 pm Singapore time.
The contract has gained 92 percent in the past year as China, Vietnam and India limited exports of the staple for half the world.
Thai Prices
The benchmark price for rice exported from Thailand, the world's biggest supplier, breached $1,000 a ton for the first time on Wednesday.
The price of 100 per cent grade B white rice, which is set weekly, gained 8.4 per cent to $1,020 a ton, an official at the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said. The price has more than tripled over the past year.
Japan, self-sufficient in rice, is obliged by a World Trade Organization agreement to give rice-exporting nations access to its market. It bought 8.32 million tonnes of foreign rice from April 1995 to October 2007 and has about 1.2 million tonnes in stockpiles of foreign rice.
The US Rice Producers Association, based in Houston, said it wouldn't oppose Japan's emergency rice sales.
Emergency Period
“We would not want this trade agreement to be suspended indefinitely, but during this emergency period it makes sense for Japan to be allowed to sell some of its stockpile,'' Thomas Wynn, spokesman and chief economist for the association, said. “Japan is also in a good geographical situation to help offset the supply problems in Asia.''
Last month, Japanese officials said they will delay tenders required under the WTO agreement until international prices stabilise.
Japan imported 630,550 tonnes of rice in the year ended March 31, falling short of the 770,000 tonnes a year it agreed to.
|
